Exports post all-time high for January

ANKARA

Türkiye’s exports hit an all-time high for January with a 10.4 percent annual jump to $19.4 billion, Trade Minister Mehmet Muş said on Feb. 2.

Imports spiked to $33.7 billion - up 21.2 percent - last month due to surging energy and commodity prices, the minister said at a news conference in Ankara.

“Despite the ongoing uncertain outlook in the global economy in 2023, we are working hard to further our export success,” Muş said.

The weak demand in the European economies creates a significant risk to our exports, Muş said. “We are working to ensure that Türkiye is the first choice in the supply of goods and services for the Middle East and Gulf countries, whose incomes, and therefore demands, are rising due to rising energy prices.”

The country’s energy imports amounted to $9 billion in January, Muş said, leaping 238 percent from a year earlier.

Türkiye’s trade deficit jumped to $14.3 billion in January, mainly due to energy imports and commodity prices.

Türkiye will increase its efforts to produce more gold in order to reduce imports, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Jan. 27, informing that the new gold mine inaugurated in western Anatolia will gradually generate 6.5 tons of gold annually.

Gold, along with oil, is the commodity Türkiye is mostly importing, the president said, also vowing to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign sources by benefiting more from the national reserves.

“For many years, Türkiye could not benefit from its potential in the field of precious metal. Türkiye has been subject to a significant number of plots [to hinder its precious metal sector] in the pretext of environmentalism,” the president said, adding they never allowed these blockages to prevent from developing the sector.